Canyon Bridge, a private investment LLC and a believable codename for an Intel processor architecture, has just reached an agreement with Imagination Technologies to acquire most of their company. This deal is valued at £550 million GBP and does not include MIPS Technologies, Inc., which Imagination Technologies purchased on February 8th of 2013.

According to Anandtech, however, MIPS Technologies, Inc. will be purchased by Tallwood Venture Capital for $65 million USD.

The reason why Imagination Technologies is expected to be split in two like this is because purchasing CPU companies places you under national security review with the United States, and Canyon Bridge is backed by the Chinese government. As such, they can grab everything but the CPU division, which lets another party swoop in for a good price on the leftover.

That said, it is currently unclear what either company, Canyon Bridge Capital Partners or Tallwood Venture Capital, wants to do with Imagination Technologies or MIPS Technologies, Inc., respectively. When Canyon Bridge attempted to purchase Lattice Semiconductor last year, they mentioned that they were interested in their FPGAs, their “video connectivity” products (HDMI, MHL, etc.), and their wireless products (60 GHz, etc.). I would assume that they’re just picking up good technology deals, but it’s also possible that they’re looking into accelerated compute companies in particular.

There’s still a few barriers before the sale closes, but it’s looking like we’re not going to end up with Imagination just merging into an existing player or something.

On September 18th, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF, announced that they were leaving the World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, due to its stance on DRM, effective immediately. This was published in the form of an open letter from Cory Doctorow, which is available on the EFF’s website.

There’s several facets to the whole DRM issue. In this case, Cory Doctorow seems focused mostly on the security side of things. Creating an architecture to attach code that manipulates untrusted data is sketchy, at a time that browser vendors are limiting that attack surface by killing as many plug-ins as possible, and, in this case, a legal minefield is layered atop it due to copyright concerns. Publishers are worried about end-users moving data in ways that they don’t intend... even though every single time that content is pirated before its release date is a testament that the problem is elsewhere.

We can also get into the issue of “more control isn’t the same as more revenue” again, some other time.

As for the consequences of this action? I’m not too sure. I don’t really know how much sway the EFF had internally at the W3C. While they will still do what they do best, fight the legal side of digital freedom, it sounds like they won’t be in a position to officially guide standards anymore. This is a concern, but I’m not in a position to quantify how big.

Corsair has launched a new Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory kit that is capable of hitting 4600 MHz at 1.5 volts. The new kit is a 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit that Corsair reportedly co-developed with AsRock for fine tune using their X299 OC Formula motherboard. The DDR4 kit is made using hand sorted Samsung B-dies and it supports Intel XMP 2.0 standards allowing it to clock at 4600 MHz with a single setting change in the UEFI.

The Vengeance LPX DIMMs run with CAS timings of 19-26-26-46 and need only 1.5V to clock at 4600 MHz. This kit will be ideal for Intel’s X299 as well as AMD’s X399 platforms. While Ryzen and Threadripper platforms may need a bit more tweaking to get working, they would benefit the most from the higher clocked memory allowing the Infinity Fabric to clock higher.

Being one of the highest factory clocked DIMMs, they come at a cost. The new RAM kit (CMK16GX4M2F4600C19) is available now for $549.99 with a lifetime limited warranty.

For something a bit more tame, earlier this week Corsair launched a 2 x 8GB kit (CMK16GX4M2F4500C19) clocked at 4500 MHz with CL19-19-19-39 timings (at 1.45V) that is also available now for $479.99 MSRP. Enthusiasts might be better off buying the cheaper kit and overclocking them (though not guaranteed and might need a bit more than 1.5V) while workstation and enterprise customers with corporate expense accounts can opt for the more expensive but factory clocked 4600 MHz kit.

At time of writing the new kits were not up on Amazon yet, but they should be shortly. You can find the cheaper 4500 MHz kit on Corsair's web store but it is listed at $504.99 currently. If you wait a bit, that price should go down closer to MSRP as other retailers put up their listings.

Lumberyard has been out for a little over a year and a half, and it has been experiencing steady development since then. Just recently, they published a blog post highlighting where they want the game engine to go. Pretty much none of this information is new if you’ve been following them, but it’s still interesting none-the-less.

From a high level, Amazon has been progressing their fork of CryEngine into more of a component-entity system. The concept is similar to Unity, in that you place objects in the level, then add components to them to give them the data and logic that you require. Currently, these components are mostly done in Lua and C++, but Amazon is working on a visual scripting system, like Blueprints from Unreal Engine 4, called Script Canvas. They technically inherited Flow Graph from Crytek, which I think is still technically in there, but they’ve been telling people to stop using it for a while now. I mean, this blog post explicitly states that they don’t intend to support migrating from Flow Graph to Script Canvas, so it’s a “don’t use it unless you need to ship real soon” sort of thing.

One of Lumberyard’s draws, however, is their license: free, but you can’t use this technology on any cloud hosting provider except AWS. So if you make an offline title, or you use your own servers, then you don’t need to pay Amazon a dime. That said, if you do something like leaderboards, persistent logins, or use cloud-hosted multiplayer, then you will need to do it through AWS, which, honestly, you were probably going to do anyway.

The current version is Lumberyard Beta 1.10. No release date has been set for 1.11, although they usually don’t say a word until it’s published.

While it’s not technically released yet, Unity has flipped the naming scheme of Unity 2017.2 to Unity 2017.2.0f1. The “f” stands for final, so we will probably see a blog post on it soon. This version has a handful of back-end changes, such as improved main-thread performance when issuing commands to graphics APIs, but the visible changes are mostly in two areas: XR (VR + AR) and baked lighting.

From the XR standpoint, a few additions stand out. First, this version now supports Google Tango and Windows Mixed Reality, the latter of which is tied to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, so it makes sense that Unity would have support in the version before that gets released (October 17th). In terms of features, the editor now supports emulating a Vive headset, so you can test some VR elements without having a headset. I expect this will mostly be good for those who want to do a bit of development in places where they don’t have access to their headset, although that’s blind speculation from my standpoint.

The other area that got a boost is baked global illumination. Unity started introducing their new Progressive Lightmapping feature in Unity 5.6, and it bakes lighting into the scenes in the background as you work. This update allows you to turn shadows on and off on a per-object basis, and it supports double-sided materials. You cannot have independent lighting calculations for the front and back of a triangle... if you want that, then you will need to give some volume to your models. This is mostly for situations like the edge of a level, so you don’t need to create a second wall facing away from the playable area to block light coming in from outside the playable area.

ASUS' take on single board computers is the new Tinker Board, powered by a 1.8 GHz Cortex-A17 based Rockchip RK3288 and a 600MHz Mali-T760 GPU which share 2 GB of LPDDR3. Storage is handled by a microSD slot, or the four USB 2.0 ports and the Tinker offers Gigabit wired connectivity as well as optional WiFi. You have a choice of operating systems, either Marshmallow flavoured Android or the Debian based Tinker OS, depending on which you prefer.

The Tech Report tested out the Tinker Board and found the hardware to outpace competitors such as Raspberry Pi, however the lack of software and documentation hamstrung the Tinker Board badly enough that they do not recommend this board. This may change in time but currently ASUS needs to do some work before the Tinker Board becomes an actual competitor in this crowded market.

"Asus' Tinker Board single-board computer wants to challenge the Raspberry Pi 3's popularity with a more powerful SoC and better networking, among other improvements. We put it to the test to see whether it's a worthy alternative to the status quo."

It's Friday, which means it's time for PC Perspective's weekly mailbag, our video show where Ryan and team answer your questions about the tech industry, the latest and greatest hardware, the process of running a tech review website, and more!

Here's what you'll find on today's show:

00:22 - PCPer Mailbag audio podcast?01:14 - Games with DirectX, OpenGL, and Vulkan?02:44 - Where are the AMD-based laptops?06:51 - Does faster RAM = higher IPC?08:28 - Using an iGPU with a discrete GPU?10:55 - Why are Vega GPUs still so expensive?14:41 - Do you need to reinstall Windows after upgrading CPU?16:48 - How to minimize screen tearing without G-SYNC?18:58 - Dummy dies and 32-core/64-thread Threadripper parts?22:14 - The Cincinnati Bengals offense?

Gamescom 2017 just wrapped up and NVIDIA made a few interesting announcements during the conference. For those enjoying PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, they announced the game now fully supports ShadowPlay Highlights along with the newly released Lawbreakers. That means you can capture all your gameplay in 4K 60 FPS, with either always-on or manual saving, and built-in uploading tools.

In addition to video capture of gameplay, their Ansel screen capture tool for the artistically inclined has also been updated. Ansel now works in 25 titles, from The Witcher 3 through Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice to new genres like Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 so you can truly show that the 'injured' player lying on the turf truly did take a dive. NVIDIA reports that you will be able to capture super-resolution, 360-degree, HDR, and stereo photographs in games developed in either the Unity Engine or the Unreal Engine as Ansel will now be provided as an add-in for those game engines.

Last but not least is a giveaway. NVIDIA will be giving away 50,000 Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor game codes to GeForce Experience community members! You do have to sign up to win but once you are a member of GFE you are automagically entered to win. They will message you in app on Sept 26th to let you know if you are a winner so you can still sign up if you are interested. It will also support Ansel, if you run across a photogenic orc beheading you want to share.

As a reminder, the offer for any who purchases of select GeForce GTX 1080 Ti or 1080 GPUs, as well as systems and laptops containing the same will get Destiny 2 on the PC launch date.

The original game was the first RPG that offered you a chance to argue with yourself, with a unique method of dialogue between the two main characters you played. It incorporated the environmental effects of spells in a much more effective way than the majority of RPGs, making it wise to dump water on an opponent before zapping them with a lightning bolt. The quests were often quite unique and the sequel seems to keep that alive, one reviewer at Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN describes how they "ate the meat from the shark’s mouth" as part of the solution to a quest. If you are looking for a different type of fantasy RPG that will make you smile, cry and scratch your head, often simultaneously, then check out the review and see if you want to pick up the game that launched today.

"Divinity: Original Sin 2 is out of Early Access and fully released. Adam and John have both spent many, many hours with the alpha, and are now beginning to chew their way through the full version."

Renowned overclocker der8auer got his hands on the new 18-core Intel Core i9-7980XE and managed to break a few records with more than a bit of LN2 and thermal paste. Following a delid, der8auer slathered the bare die and surrounding PCB with a polymer-based (Kryonaut) TIM and reattached the HIS to prepare for the extreme overclock. He even attempted to mill out the middle of the IHS to achieve a balance between direct die cooling and using the IHS to prevent bending the PCB and spread out the pressure from the LN2 cooler block, but ran into inconsistent results between runs and opted not to proceed with that method.

Using an Asus Rampage VI Apex X299 motherboard and the Core i9-7980XE at an Asus ROG event in Taiwan der8auer used liquid nitrogen to push all eighteen cores (plus Hyper-Threading) to 6.1 GHz for a CPU-Z validation. To get those clockspeeds he needed to crank up the voltage to 1.55V (1.8V VCCIN) which is a lot for the 14nm Skylake X processor. Der8auer noted that overclocking was temperature limited beyond this point as at 6.1 GHz he was seeing positive temperatures on the CPU cores despite the surface of the LN2 block being as low as -100 °C! Perhaps even more incredible is the power draw of the processor as it runs at these clockspeeds with the system drawing as much as 1,000 watts (~83 amps) on the +12V rail with the CPU being responsible for almost all of that number! That is a lot of power running through the motherboard VRMs and the on-processor FIVR!

For comparison, at 5.5 GHz he measured 70 amps on the +12V rail (840W) with the chip using 1.45V vcore under load.

For Cinebench R15, the extreme overclocker opted for a tamer 5.7 GHz where the i9-7980XE achieved a multithreaded score of 5,635 points. He compared that to his AMD Threadripper overclock of 5.4 GHz where he achieved a Cinebench score of 4,514 (granted the Intel part was using four more threads and clocked higher).

To push things (especially his power supply heh) further, the overclocker added a LN2 cooled NVIDIA Titan Xp to the mix and managed to overclock the graphics card to 2455 MHz at 1.4V. With the 3840 Pascal cores at 2.455 GHz he managed to break three single card world records by scoring 45,705 in 3DMark 11, 35,782 in 3DMark Fire Strike, and 120,425 in 3DMark Vantage!

Der8auer also made a couple interesting statements regarding overclocking at these levels including the issues of cold bugs not allowing the CPU and/or GPU to boot up if the cooler plate is too cold. On the other side of things, once the chip is running the power consumption can jump drastically with more voltage and higher clocks such that even LN2 can’t maintain sub-zero core temperatures! The massive temperature delta can also create condensation issues that need to be dealt with. He mentions that while for 24/7 overclocking liquid metal TIMs are popular choices, when extreme overclocking the alloy actually works against them because the sub-zero temperatures reduce the effectiveness and thermal conductivity of the interface material which is why polymer-based TIMs are used when cooling with liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, or TECs. Also, while most people apply a thin layer of thermal paste to the direct die or HIS, when extreme overclocking he “drowns” the processor die and PCB in the TIM to get as much contact as possible with the cooler as every bit of heat transfer helps even the small amount he can transfer through the PCB. Further, FIVR has advantages such as per-core voltage fine tuning, but it also can hold back further overclocking from cold bugs that will see the processor shut down past -100 to -110 °C temperature limiting overclocks whereas with an external VRM setup they could possibly push the processor further.

Imagination Technologies is known to develop interesting, somewhat offbeat hardware, such as GPUs with built-in ray tracers. In this case, the company is jumping into the neural network market with a Power VR-branded accelerator. The PowerVR Series2NX Neural Network Accelerator works on massively parallel, but low-precision tasks. AnandTech says that the chip can even work in multiple bit-depths on different layers in a single network, from 16-bit, down to 12-, 10-, 8-, 7-, 6-, 5-, and 4-bit.

Imagination seems to say that this is variable “to maintain accuracy”. I’m guessing it doesn’t give an actual speed-up to tweak your network in that way, but I honestly don’t know.

As for Imagination Technologies, they intend to have this in mobile devices for, as they suggest, photography and predictive text. They also state the usual suspects: VR/AR, automotive, surveillance, and so forth. They are suggesting that this GPU technology will target Tensorflow Lite.

The PowerVR 2NX Neural Network Accelerator is available for licensing.

Atari have released a tiny trickle of new information about their somewhat mysterious Ataribox; it will run some flavour of Linux on AMD hardware and cost somewhere between $250 to $300. They describe their upcoming product as equivalent to a mid-range PC, not quite up to running AAA games but able to handle Minecraft or Terraria in addition to classic Atari games. This will make it somewhat more expensive than an NVIDIA Shield and more on par with a current generation gaming console; somewhat apt as they too rely on AMD hardware.

Atari will be launching an Indiegogo campaign this fall to fund the Ataribox, with an expected release 12 months after that launch date. While the idea is intriguing, for who doesn't want to play old Atari games on a nice looking machine; one wonders if Atari can honestly refer to themselves as struggling entrepreneurs in need of assistance in launching a product. Drop by The Inquirer for more.

"The Ataribox will be based on PC tech, and as such won't be tied to any one ecosystem. Now, usually this would send us screaming for the hills, but we know this one is going to get funded, so we're not sweating about sharing some more info."

Gigabyte released some information about their new Aorus Z370 motherboards, though we still do not have full technical specifications yet. We do know the boards will support DDR4 of up to 4400MHz and feature familar extras such as ESS Sabre DAC, Smart Fan 5 and RGB Fusion.

The boards feature updated VRM and PWM designs which can drive up to 60 amps per power phase as well as 10K Ultra Durable Black capacitors. Smart Fan 5 will incorporate a small fan positioned near the VRMs which can be enabled to offer airflow for water cooled systems. M.2 Thermal Guards serve a similar purpose at a lower decibel level. There is support for a variety of R's, G's and B's, in addition to the integrated ones there are 4-pin headers which support either 5v or 12v LED strips.

City of Industry, California, September 25th, 2017 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, has unveiled the new Z370 AORUS motherboards based on the Intel Z370 chipset. These supercharged motherboards are equipped with a server-grade digital power design which fully support 8th generation Intel Core processors. Performance tuned, the Z370 AORUS Motherboards are compatible with memory modules rated for 4400MHz. With unique features like an ESS Sabre DAC, Smart Fan 5 and RGB Fusion, there’s no doubt why gamers turn to AORUS for the ultimate gaming motherboard.

“Following Intel‘s release of the Z370 chipset platform, GIGABYTE has designed a new, groundbreaking motherboard,” said Vincent Liu, Senior Associate Vice President of GIGABYTE’s Motherboard Business Unit. “GIGABYTE Z370 AORUS motherboards are designed for gamers who value powerful, yet highly durable motherboards. With our new digital power design, not only will Z370 AORUS motherboards unleash the power of the 8th generation Intel Core processors’ they will easily fulfill gamers’ demands.”

Designed with 14nm technology, the 8th gen Intel Core processors range from 4-Cores and 4 threads to 6-Cores and 12 threads each performing better than its predecessor. Z370 AORUS Motherboards deliver the highest video quality, 4K UHD, and uninterrupted streaming to users through the use of HDCP 2.2 Technology, a HEVC 10-bit decoder, as well as a VP9 hardware decoder.

Efficient Power Delivery
The Z370 AORUS Motherboards utilize a new VRM and PWM design which is able to drive 60 amps per power pwm.jpgphase as well as strengthen the signal between the processor and voltage regulator. Through the use of server-grade 10K Ultra Durable Black™ capacitors GIGABYTE is able to increase durability while reducing excess electrostatic charge on the PWMs, improving efficiency between the CPU. With its intricate power design the Z370 AORUS Motherboards are still able to meet the standards of the California Energy Commision (CEC) as a low power and high efficiency motherboard.

Immersive Audio Experience with an ESS Sabre DAC
Paired with an ESS Sabre DAC and the Creative Sound BlasterX 720° software the Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 offers unrivaled audio performance. This synergy of hardware and software allows users a distinct advantage in multiplayer online games. Through Scout Radar gamers can obtain visual cues to where enemies or opponents are giving them an edge in-game. For audiophiles this duo has comprehensive tools backed by leading technology and algorithms to enrich the audio experience whether users are listening to music, watching movies, or streaming.

Beat the Heat with Smart Fan 5 with Fan Stop Technology
Smart Fan 5 has been a sought after feature for gamers and PC enthusiasts. As it continues to evolve Smart Fan 5 has incorporated features like Fan Stop Technology which allows fans to actively shut off to reduce ambient noise when thermal thresholds are not met. With the flagship Z370 AORUS Gaming smart fan.jpg7, Smart Fan 5 introduces active cooling. Active cooling integrates a unique fan positioned near the VRMs for systems built with AIO liquid coolers where airflow is not present. These technologies allow for users to prolong the life of their gaming pc and squeeze the limits of performance from their Motherboard through the use of overclocking.

Other technologies that can be found on Z370 AORUS Motherboards are M.2 Thermal Guards which cool down those next generation form factors for storage. AORUS Thermal Guards reside on M.2 slots ensuring that gamers and power users will receive the most optimal transfer speeds from their top of the line storage devices.

Show Your True Colors with RGB Fusion and Digital LEDs
RGB Fusion is more powerful than ever, now with support for Digital LEDs in either 5v or 12v, RGBz370 aorus gaming 7.jpg Fusion can be customized with individually addressable LED strips, arrays, and even matrices. The Z370 AORUS Motherboards offer RGB Pin Headers on both the bottom and top of the board to ensure convenience for modders and the everyday PC builder. With a 4-pin header that can be reconfigured to be compatible with almost all RGBW strips on the market, RGB Fusion is the most versatile platform for all RGB accessories.

Plex has always been an excellent way to organize the movies, TV shows, and other media that you already have, but one area in which it has traditionally lacked is outside content. The Plex team has taken steps to address this in recent years, first with the introduction of DVR support in late 2016 and followed by the ability to watch live TV this past June. Now Plex has set its sights on another area of outside content: news.

Plex today announced Plex News, a new service that aggregates recent video clips from over 190 global and local news publishers and integrates them "seamlessly and beautifully" into your media library. The initiative is based upon Watchup, a personalized news aggregation service that Plex acquired last January. Users can choose the topics and sources of news they prefer, and Plex will create custom video feeds containing each day's news. "AI and machine learning" will then learn the type of content each users prefers and automatically adapt the user's news feed as new videos and content sources are added.

Plex News is especially exciting to us because it follows a progression we started with Live TV and DVR where we’re bringing you great media from outside your library in a way which integrates seamlessly and beautifully. This makes it easier than ever to start using Plex if you’re new, and gives you another universe of content to explore outside of your own media, without ever leaving Plex.

In addition to clips from expected sources like CNN and the CNET, Plex claims that it has reached a deal to provide users with local news in more than 80 percent of U.S. markets as well, which positions Plex as a unique source for both enjoying your on-demand content library and keeping up with important events in the "real world."

Plex News is launching as a free ad-supported service and will roll out to all users over the next two days, starting first with Plex Pass subscribers. It is available at launch for Android TV (including NVIDIA SHIELD), Apple TV, Roku, Android Mobile, and iOS, with support for other platforms to follow.

The current state of naming conventions continues to confound, AMD's X370 chipset appeared at the same time Intel offers a Z370 in a testament to the troubled mental state of PR flacks. Ignoring that particular matter in order to focus on the technical specifications of Gigabyte's new Gaming K7, we direct you to [H]ard|OCP's review of the motherboard. It offers six PCIe slots, two of which are 16x PCIe 3.0, support for up to 64GB of DDR4-3600MHz, both an M.2 and U.2 port and even a pair of SEx ports looking for something compatible to plug into them. With four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, one of which is Type-C as well as 10 USB 3.1 Gen. 1 ports you are not going to have issues with peripherals. Check out the full performance and overclocking results of this Silver Award winning board for all the details.

"GIGABYTE’s AX370 Gaming K7 is in many ways the motherboard the AX370 Gaming 5 should have been. GIGABYTE has a habit of creating multiple SKUs with differences that are so minor that one can’t help but wonder why two separate models exist when they are almost indistinguishable from one another."

Gigabyte's Aero 15 gaming notebook is a mere 19.9mm (0.78") at its thickest point and weighs in at 2.1 kg (4.62lbs), yet it manages to hold respectable components inside. Intels Core i7-7700HQ along with a proper 6GB GTX 1060, a Samsung 512 GB PCIe SSD and 16GB of DDR4-2400. That list of parts will set you back $1900, about what you should expect from a gaming laptop; if you want to play Prey and Doom on the road you do have to pay. Check out The Tech Report's full review to see how it handled a variety of other games.

"Gigabyte's Aero 15 notebook brings together one of Intel's most powerful mobile CPUs and Nvidia's GTX 1060 6GB graphics chip in a chassis that's well under an inch thick. We put the Aero 15 to the test to see if it can keep its cool under the most demanding workloads."